Start a Tradition of Giving This Year

Now that the wreckage of Christmas morning is now settled into piles of colored paper, with loose scraps skulking in the corners and under the couch, and the food-induced coma from a hefty lunch is beginning to wane, the children—ever energetic—are beginning to come down off their dopamine high from the frenzy of gift opening this morning. The widget that seemed so enticing at 8AM is now, perhaps, stuck in a couch cushion and the thrill of the hunt—the search for the last present under the tree—has faded.

Before the boredom of the day sets in and the squabbling over taking turns with the gifts of another, consider taking the time to reinforce the power of giving on Christmas.

Of course, in all likelihood, this was planned before hand with kids picking out trinkets for loved ones in the store or helping to wrap the presents for Mom and Dad. But so many of our gifts are from people with much to people that have much. Though there are certainly exceptions, Christmas tends to be a day of excess, where some of that excess flows over in generosity for those with little real need.

To help combat this, several years ago we started a tradition in our family. It certainly isn’t earth shattering or worthy of high esteem, but it is a method to help all of us, and especially the kids, remember that our abundance is far from universal and, within the broader history of humanity, is an extreme rarity.

Our tradition is to assign a certain amount of money to each child for the purpose of giving through a charitable organization. For consistency and because I believe in their mission, we use the Compassion gift catalog.

For those of you who aren’t already on their mailing list, consider clicking here to go to their online gift catalog. Pass the tablet to your children or bring them alongside you as you look through the options.

Given that the average American household who gives any gifts on Christmas planned on spending $962 this year, another $50 or even $300  that will help those with legitimate needs is not an overly large gift. One practice that I’ve heard commended is giving the amount of the largest single gift for a person or group to some missions or aid organization.

More significant than the actual gift, however, is the act of giving. I think there is power even in clicking on one’s choice of gift for someone really in need, even while the aroma of ham, turkey, and mashed potatoes permeates the space of you abundance.

NOTE: Images on this page are courtesy of the International Mission Board: https://www.imb.org/photo-library/

Encountering God in the Psalms - A Review

Most books get reviewed when they are first out, generally within two years. Sometimes, there are classics that people will “review” years afterward, but this is generally a way of introducing people to an older book, with little intent to provide feedback to the author for his next work. This review falls more into the latter category than the former, since the author is deceased, but I make no claims that this book is a classic, merely that it is a worthy piece of scholarship that could be helpful to more than have likely encountered it. It is a book that is useful in building up the body of Christ.

Michael Travers’ most important book is a 2003 volume, Encountering God in the Psalms, which he published with Kregel shortly after he arrived at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary, though the majority of the volume was authored while he was at Mississippi College. The book is about reading the Psalms. More specifically, it is about reading the Psalms both for their literary quality and their devotional power. It is in this dual purpose, well executed, that gives this book its unique quality and enduring value.

The first part of the book teaches the reader how to read the Psalms. The first three chapter of the book are dedicated to teaching readers about the nature of poetry, the structure of Hebrew poetry, the concepts of theme, genre, and musical quality. While the book is focused on a particular subset of poetry, there is a great deal of general wisdom in these chapters that teach the reader how to read poetry better.

Part Two is longer, consisting of ten chapters that walk the reader through reading select Psalms. The section begins by presenting Moses’ encounter with God as a narrative exemplar that shows the setting that is, to some degree, present for all of the various authors of Psalms. The remaining chapters deal with Psalms that are sorted by theme. Travers moves through Psalms grouped under headings that consider God as creator, covenant maker, Messiah, redeemer, way of wisdom, and other themes. Each chapter shows how the method for reading the Psalms laid out in Part One can be applied to Psalms that fit those themes.

This is a useful book because it is a book that points people toward something beyond itself or the author. In this way, Travers is much like C. S. Lewis. When Lewis wrote he was always trying to get people to see where he was pointing. In this case, Travers is pointing people through his own work toward that Psalms that are, in turn, pointing people toward the Triune God. This is, therefore, just the sort of book that will help people become better Christians.

Michael’s early research was on the devotional poets, especially John Milton. His skill with poetry comes through in this book as he brings readers to a deeper appreciation for the power of language through poetry. This is the sort of book that will shape the mind by equipping it for later study. It is not a flashy volume, but its chapters are filled with solid wisdom.

Encountering God in the Psalms is a book that will most benefit those who love Scripture and want to learn more about God through his word. It is the sort of book that requires diligence and careful reading of the text of Scripture alongside its own pages. However, it is also a book that will sharpen the reader, deepen their love for the Psalms, and likely point them to a deeper understanding of the God who inspired the psalmists. It is, in fact, a book that many pastors should pick up and that lay people should aspire to.

Encountering God in the Psalms

By Michael E. Travers

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Ten Significant Books from 2018

Unlike many other recent years, much of my reading this year has been in older books, particularly those of C. S. Lewis because I have been writing on Lewis and editing a volume about him. However, there are still quite a number of recent books that I read in 2018 that are worth recommending. This post is a list (in no particular order) of the ten books that I reviewed that I believe to be the most important and helpful of 2018.

The links in the bullets below go to longer reviews that I wrote for the books.

1.       Disruptive Witness – Alan Noble’s book, which released this spring, is one of the best and most significant books I’ve read in a while. Noble really gets contemporary culture and his diagnosis of the dangers of our consumeristic approach to identity are spot on. If you haven’t read this book, you should consider picking it up.

2.       On Reading Well – If you love reading, you’ll likely enjoy this book. English professor, Karen Swallow Prior, leads her readers through a number of significant works of literature to show how reading carefully and consuming quality literature can morally form us. The book is good on its own, but would make for an excellent introduction and companion through a lot of classic literature.

3.       How to Think – It can be hard to navigate the online world with its diversions and distractions. Add to that the contentiousness of so many issues and the supposed anonymity of the internet and you have a recipe for losing one’s Christian character. Alan Jacobs offers a concise guide to thinking well in a crazy age. This is a book that is intended more for general rather than Christian audiences, but could benefit those inside the church a great deal.

4.       Superheroes Can’t Save You – Theology isn’t always fun reading, but Todd Miles proves that it can be in this excellent book on Christology. Miles critiques a variety of Christological heresies by showing how those heresies are like comic book heroes and why those images fall short of the true nature of the Son. I thoroughly enjoyed this book, even as someone who isn’t a huge comic fan, and see great potential for its use in training up a segment of the Christian population that can be hard to reach.

5.       The Year of Our Lord 1943 – Alan Jacobs makes a second appearance on this list with a book that examines the work of several Christian humanists in Britain around World War II. This was a pivotal time in Western culture, as the Axis powers threatened the existence of so many. In response to the threat to society, many of the offered solutions—particularly socialism and communism—seemed to be as dangerous. Jacobs follows these thinkers as they explore what it means to be human and how to help others become more human.

6.       They Thought They Were Free – This is not a new book, but it was republished in late 2017. They Thought They Were Free offers a journalistic approach to the rise of Nazism and the persecution of the Jews in Germany. The story that Mayer unpacks is revealing simply because it shows that the Holocaust was made possible by an incremental drift toward antipathy. Busyness and misinformation also played a significant role. There are too many parallels for our day to pass this book by without giving it a careful read.

7.       The Character Gap – Christian Miller has written an excellent summary of the need for and ability for people to improve their characters. Science is beginning to support the truth Christians have held to for millennia: people can develop character. Miller’s book is intriguing for a number of reasons, but it offers a helpful portal into the discussion of moral character that is increasing in secular circles.

8.       Living Wisely with the Church Fathers – Christopher Hall is an expert on patristics and this book brings his knowledge to bear in an outstanding treatment of early church history, particularly the history of ethics. What Hall shows is that many of the character concerns orthodox Christians have maintained (at least until recently) are consistent with the historic beliefs of the church. In other words, contemporary evangelicals aren’t the first group of Christians to be actively concerned for the life of the unborn.

9.       Faith Among the Faithless – This book is a study of Esther that helps contemporary Christians navigate a world that is hostile to authentic faith. Mike Cosper does a great deal to enhance readers’ understanding of the book, debunking a fair number of myths along the way. This is a helpful companion to a study of Esther because Cosper works to explain the context and translate it to contemporary examples.

10.   Practicing the King’s Economy – In a crowded field of “faith and work” books, this volume is the combination of theory and practice that the church needs. Holt, Rhodes, and Fikkert honor the power of the free market to bring about justice, but also point toward the need for more than just a free market. The lessons on why Christians need to be concerned for our neighbors are followed closely by examples of how that concern can be worked out in the context of faithful Christianity.

Whether you are looking for a Christmas gift for someone this year or trying to plan your reading for the year ahead, these are some of the recently published books that I found especially helpful this year.

The Storm-Tossed Family - A Review

Families are under attack and the only hope for them is to be reshaped by the cross of Christ.

That might sound like a reactionary statement, which could be accompanied by a decline narrative and commentary on how much worse things are today. However, as a central idea of Russell Moore’s recent book, The Storm-Tossed Family: How the Cross Reshapes the Home, he provides evidence that the family has always been critical and has always been a spiritual battle ground.

Moore writes, “Family can enliven us or crush us because family is about more than the just the life cycle of our genetic material. Family is spiritual warfare.”

The spiritual importance of the family is made evident in the pages of Scripture. Even before one of the Ten Commandments anchors the family in the very character of God, we read of Satan’s attempt to disrupt the first family by tempting Eve to sin. Shortly after that we read of one brother killing another out of jealousy. The Bible is clear that the family is a focal point for satanic attack and that the disruption of the family is one of the clearest evidences of sin in the world.

Logically, we must ask why that is.

Again, Moore helps to explain, “The family is one of the pictures of the gospel that God has embedded in the world around us. Through a really dark glass, we can see flashes in the family of something at the core of the universe itself, of the Fatherhood of God, of the communion of a people with one another.”

The balance of the volume explores the nature of the family, the corrosive ideas that are negatively impacting our families, and offers a better vision for the good of the family.

The Storm-Tossed Family is reasonably comprehensive. After introducing the concept of family being spiritual warfare Moore begins by identifying points where contemporary culture conflicts with a cross shaped vision of the family, tearing down mistaken ideas and offering a better version of the family.

This process begins with Moore’s affirmation that the Kingdom of God is the primary concern of Christians, not the family. Here he is debunking the dangerous idea that the function of the church is somehow social or political—to preserve the nuclear family—rather than spiritual.

The most important distinction in that important, but secondary, concept of the family is that the family is a picture of the gospel, not the gospel itself. No one comes to Christ because they see a strong nuclear family. They come to Christ because they recognize their need for a savior and the hope that he offers.

Additionally, Moore deconstructs one of the ongoing myths of Christian sub-culture by reminding readers that the church is a family. Thus, the hyper-territorial parenting styles that are a fairly common occurrence in children’s church and the preference of “family time” over church activities in all or most cases represents a deviation from the pattern outlined in Scripture, particularly the New Testament.

Subsequently, the place of singles in the body of Christ becomes less questionable. No longer is the local church projected as a way to support the nuclear family in a hostile world. It does that, to be sure, but the primary purpose is to be a family to exemplify the gospel. Thus, singles are an integral part of the body, not a loosely attached appendage consigned to a class of misfits on a Sunday morning.

The themes that Moore tracks down are plentiful, and the above paragraphs provide just a few examples. He also delves into human sexuality, pointing out where the church has conceded a great dal of ground to the world around—we are, as Moore has argued frequently, often simply slow-moving sexual revolutionaries. As long as we are a few decades behind society, we feel like we are being sufficiently conservative. The point, however, is not to be conservative per se, but to be biblically faithful.

The Storm-Tossed Family is an important book for our age. Moore manages to highlight errors prevalent in even the most theologically orthodox churches while holding firm to the positive patterns of family that are indicated (though rarely exemplified) in Scripture. The connection between the gospel and proper function of the family is, without question, the central theme of this book.

The good news in this book is the good news: Christ came to redeem us from our sin. One of the most affirming and reassuring anecdotes in this book is of a man, realizing he had failed often and significantly as a father, being told that Christ would redeem his failures. The message is not that it is ok to fail, as if all the wrong we do will be undone, but that in Christ all things will work together for good. Repentance is real, powerful, and effective. God doesn’t change the past, but he will redeem it through the blood of Christ. That is the sort of hope that all of us imperfect people need to hear about.

The Storm-Tossed Family: How the Cross Reshapes the Home

By Russell D. Moore

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NOTE: I received a gratis copy of this volume from the publisher with no expectation of a positive review.